“Probably the closest thing to the environment theseastronauts will face is if you go back hundreds of yearsand look at the ships that crossed the ocean, so it’s aninteresting, exciting and important area of research towhich I think psychologists have a lot to contribute.”

SCOTT TANNENBAUM

The Group for Organizational Effectiveness, Albany, N. Y.

Usually when co-workers irritate each other, they can let off steam by spending time with family or going for a jog. But in the cramped quarters of a space capsule, it’s
tough to find a place to decompress after a challenging workday.
And over time, little disagreements can erode an astronaut’s
ability to function as part of a team, says Eduardo Salas, PhD,
an industrial-organizational psychologist at the University of
Central Florida (UCF).

“It’s not like someone can leave if they’re not getting along,”says Salas, a psychology professor who also directs the HumanSystems Integration Research program at the school’s Institutefor Simulation and Training. “Team cohesion is paramount tosuccess.”In fact, a space mission can be disastrous without it. Errorsindirectly caused by team members’ conflicts can have direconsequences. “People can die,” he says.

To avert such human error, Salas, along with his UCF
colleague Kimberly Smith-Jentsch, PhD, and several other
industrial-organizational psychologists are using NASA funding
to conduct research that helps inform the team selection and
training for the agency’s mission to Mars, tentatively scheduled
for 2030.

The mission will require the astronauts to live and work
together in what’s known as an “isolated, confined and
extreme” environment for almost three years — a team
dynamic that is relatively unknown, says Scott Tannenbaum,
PhD, another I/O psychologist. He and John Mathieu,
PhD, of the University of Connecticut, are using a NASA
grant to study how to best compose and develop a resilient,
adaptive and self-sustaining team for long-duration space
exploration.

“No one has traveled that far out in space for that long,
so it’s not like we can take a look at research that’s been done
elsewhere,” says Tannenbaum, president of the consulting firm
The Group for Organizational Effectiveness, based in Albany,
N. Y. “Probably the closest thing to the environment these
astronauts will face is if you go back hundreds of years and look

at the ships that crossed the ocean. So it’s an interesting, exciting
and important area of research to which I think psychologists
have a lot to contribute.”

The right mix

In addition to the space capsule’s close quarters and lack
of privacy, other major challenges the Mars team will face
are the constant noise of machinery, a 15- to 20-minute
communication lag time between the astronauts and the
Houston-based NASA headquarters grounds crew, and the
biological changes that arise from low gravity and a lack of a
sunlight-based 24-hour day.

“Astronauts at the International Space Station (ISS) live
spaciously compared to the capsule the Mars team will use,”
says Michigan State University’s Steve Kozlowski, PhD, who
is using the NASA funding his team received to develop tools
to monitor the Mars team’s cohesiveness over time. The
International Space Station’s length and width is about the size
of a football field including the end zones. The Mars capsule,
while not yet developed, will likely be closer to the size of a
small kitchen.

“ISS astronauts also enjoyed 24/7 communication access
to anyone on the planet, weekly video calls with their family
and weekly support meetings with a psychologist,” says
Kozlowski. Such outside mental health support will not be as
readily available for the Mars mission due to the large time
lag, “making this a much more team-centric mission than ever
before,” he says.

That’s the key reason Tannenbaum and his team are
examining how to create a crew that will work well together in
addition to being highly skilled at their individual tasks. While
the Mars mission crew won’t be selected for several more years,
Tannenbaum says, in the short term their work will focus on
crews for shorter missions, such as to the International Space
Station.

In addition, previous research he and his team have
conducted with the U.S. Army has shown that team